1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an image file apparatus. More particularly, this invention relates to an image file apparatus that records and stores an image, which is recorded in a recording medium by a digital camera or the like, in another recording medium.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, a recording medium such as a memory card for use in a digital camera is relatively expensive, and it is not economical to have a number of memory cards. To address this problem, image data recorded in the recording medium by the digital camera is stored in another recording medium having a large recording capacity (such a medium is relatively inexpensive per bit) for use in an image file apparatus.
On the other hand, the number of pixels in an imaging device in the digital camera has been increasing recently, so that image data with a large number of pixels (high resolution) can be recorded in the recording medium. In order to read the image data with a large number of pixels from the recording medium and display the entire image on a monitor such as a CRT display in accordance with the read image data, the image data is reduced and interpolated to decrease the number of the pixels therein in accordance with a display size of the monitor.
If image data with a large number of pixels is read from the recording medium and is reduced and interpolated to decrease the number of the pixels therein according to the display size of the monitor every time an image is displayed on the monitor, a long time is taken due to the large amount of data accessed. Moreover, some amount of time is needed to reduce the data and the like, further adding to the amount of time required to display the image on the monitor.